my highway to zion

Email inbox cleaned out. Check. 2012 Journal overview. Check. Mandatory New Years FB post. Check. Blog update. Eeek. When did I go from be super-blogger to hardly ever thinking to come on here and update this once-loved world of blogging? I could put it on my new years resolutions list, to blog more...alongside my "keep in better contact with friends and family over the world, exercise, start eating better, simplify, etc" But instead, Im just going to start with this blog, today, and see where it takes us! I hope you enjoy 2012 in review... I mean, let's start with what is really most important in life: coffee. You think I'm kidding? Well, maybe I am supposed to have lots of pious and missionary-ish things to say, but coffee really is a pretty significant part of my life. It feels familiar in my hands, which helps me in life. It's warm when Cape Town winter invades my rickety, old apartment building, my Toms as Im walking to the train station, or my ...

The father of Rachel Joy Scott, one of the young children killed at Columbine 12 years ago, wrote this appeal to United States' H ouse Judiciary Committee's subcommittee last week. The words are the most accurate summary of what is the root of any and all violence, in America and beyond. "Since the dawn of creation there has been both good &evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers. "The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart. "In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was am...